National Personalities & Genetic Traits at the BBC… Plus Something More on the BBC
So the notoriously alt-right fringe fake news organization, the BBC, had an article entitled Different Nationalities Really Have Different Personalities. It begins:
When psychologists have given the same personality test to hundreds or thousands of people from different nations, they have indeed found that the average scores tend to come out differently across cultures. In other words, the average personality in one country often really is different from the average personality in another.
From my perspective, as someone who spent around 30% of his life abroad, if the paragraph above wasn’t true, there’d be little point in traveling. Why the heck go through the hassle and expense of getting yourself to Malaysia, Mexico or Morocco if you’re just going to meet the same people you’ll find on your block?
Now, the Beeb does assure us that many of the perceptions that people do hold about the personalities of different countries are wrong. But that isn’t as comforting as you might think. To make that statement, of course, requires knowing what the personalities of the countries are, which is covered here:
Several large international studies have now documented cross-cultural differences in average personality. One of the most extensive was published in 2005 by Robert McCrae and 79 collaborators around the world, who profiled more than 12,000 college students from 51 cultures. Based on averaging these personality profiles, the researchers were able to present an “aggregate” trait score for each of the cultures.
The highest scoring cultural groups for Extraversion on average were Brazilians, French Swiss and the Maltese, while the lowest scoring were Nigerians, Moroccans and Indonesians. The highest scoring for Openness to Experience were German-speaking Swiss, Danes and Germans, while the lowest scoring on average were Hong Kong Chinese, Northern Irish and Kuwaitis. The study also uncovered variation between countries in the three other main personality traits of Neuroticism, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness.
Of course, it’s important to remember that these are averages and there is a lot of overlap between countries; there are undoubtedly a lot of people in Indonesia who are more extraverted than some from Brazil.
Of course, that result is so 2005. More recent polling seems to indicate that post-experience Danes are less open to more experience in the future, at least when that experience involves immigration from some regions of the world.
German attitudes on this subject are changing too. German Swiss, not so much, but then Swiss immigration laws means the German Swiss experience is more akin to that of the Danes and Germans pre-2005. Besides, I’m going to go out on a limb and say this particular study isn’t measuring the personality traits that count, namely those that lead to improvements in everyone’s quality of life.
The BBC goes on:
What could explain these national differences in average personality? The reasons are likely partly genetic, perhaps to do with historic migration patterns. For example, people strong on traits related to risk-taking and openness might be more likely to migrate, so these traits are likely to be over-represented in regions that were historically on the frontier of exploration; conversely, an isolated population is likely to become more introverted and inward focused through the generations as bolder individuals are more likely to choose to emigrate.
A recent series of studies conducted with islanders resident in several isolated Italian archipelagos put these principles to the test. Andrea Ciani at the University of Padova and his colleagues found that islanders are less extraverted and open-minded, but more conscientious and emotionally stable, than their mainland neighbours located 10 to 40 miles away. This is likely because, over time, bolder more open-minded individuals have chosen to emigrate away from the islands.
Supporting this, a sample of recent emigrants from the islands to the mainland were found to score higher on extraversion and openness than the remaining islanders. Ciani’s team also genotyped a sample of islanders and mainlanders and found that a version of a gene previously associated with risk-taking (the 2R allele of the DRD4 gene, which codes for a receptor for the neurotransmitter dopamine) was less common among islanders. The researchers said this suggests there is “some genetic basis for the observation that individuals in long-isolated communities exhibit a particular personality type”.
Undoubtedly environmental factors also play a part: for instance, there’s evidence that traits associated with extraversion and openness are lower in regions where risk of infection is greater, which makes evolutionary sense in terms of reducing the spread of disease. Experts have also speculated that differences in climate could influence regional differences in personality, such as cold regions with a lack of sunlight contributing to greater emotional instability.
Again, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the BBC hasn’t asked the folks who are studying personality issues that are of real relevance. Cold weather and lack of sunlight may contribute to emotional instability is the for example they trotted out, but a more important question is if cold weather and lack of sunlight explains how a tiny population produces a Niels Abel, not to say the rest of the impressive list of scientists and mathematicians generated by Norway over the last few hundred years. But that’s a quibble. Maybe they’ll get to that question, eventually.
In my opinion, that isn’t the BBC’s only failing on issues of race and genetics. To me, the BBC has a clear (and reprehensible) anti-Semitic and anti-Hindu bias. I also feel it occasionally promotes an anti-American slant which I don’t like one bit. But still, credit where credit is due. Also, the BBC article did remind me of this post that I wrote last year showing a strong correlation between per capita income of a country and the income of immigrants of that country in the US.
As I noted at the time:
From this, it would appear that skillsets and cultures not only survive the move to the US, but in general, they may barely change among first generation immigrants. And since parents’ income is often a strong predictor (if not determinant) of a child’s income, it would seem that the effect can continue for generations. What my old econometrics professor used to call casual empiricism also appears to bear this out, at least for those who aren’t shocked by the results.
I would also note one extremely important implication – different groups can have wildly different outcomes without it being the result of racism, discrimination, or randomness.
—
As an extra, semi-sorta-more-or-less related piece to the above, perhaps something is changing at the BBC. For instance, as of this writing, one can click on this on the BBC’s news site:
Not long ago, the BBC wasn’t concerned about getting out the vote in no-go zones. After all, the BBC’s view was that no-go zones in places like Paris were simply delusions held by the far right, sort of like the inverse of Utopia. Exactly one month ago, for example, the BBC published an article on fake news containing this line:
The map, which first appeared in a Daily Telegraph article on 8 November 2005, to highlight the riots and unrest then, has been shared thousands of times on social media in recent weeks. Far-right accounts have falsely claimed it depicts current rioting in France and have used it to endorse the existence of “no-go zones”.
This isn’t quite on the scale of always having been at war with Eurasia (or is it Eastasia?) but there have been a few times in the past month or two where I read an article in the BBC and said to myself – “it’s kind of odd that this is showing up in the BBC.” And what the BBC prints does affect the economy.
“Why the heck go through the hassle and expense of getting yourself to Malaysia, Mexico or Morocco if you’re just going to meet the same people you’ll find on your block?”
Those ARE the same people I’ll find on my block. 😀
While there are differences in personality from nation to nation, they do not reflect the stereotyped personality differences:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/310/5745/96
Warren,
Well, if you like your neighbors, then you have some idea about whether you want to visit or steer clear of their birth countries.
Kaleberg,
There’s been a lot of work on this (including by the main author of the article you cite – who happens to be the second author in a paper cited in my post). But yeah, from what I can tell skimming the literature, it seems that the national stereotypes are stable across who you ask, but inaccurate. (A later paper argues for assessing them in a case by case basis.)
This seems like a no brainer. Perceived national character traits are often about projection and aspiration. But this comes down to one of the points I made in the post: the people looking at this are looking at the wrong issue. It matters less why there is a misimpression about, say (to use the example in the post), the Norwegians about some personality trait, then why a country with such a small population punches so high above its weight in math and science. That’s the relevant question for everyone: how do we generate more Abels?
Hell, Bill Gates and a host of worthies are pumping who knows how much into science in Africa. There’s even the NextEinstein project. Their assumption is that what is missing is money and infrastructure of some sort.
But I don’t think that’s the case. I think by analogy, and to the “Abel” to “NextEinstein” project, my analogy is Ramanujan and Bose. I suspect a culture cannot produce the work of (Satyendra) Bose without infrastructure and money, but demonstrably, that is not true about Ramanujan. On the other hand, I suspect if a culture cannot generate a Ramanujan, it will not produce a Bose either.
I am afraid the initiatives in Africa are designed to produce a Bose without asking why there hasn’t been a Ramanujan. I am afraid people like Gates are spending a lot of money trying to solve the wrong problem in Africa.
Culture shapes personality. Who would have ever thought otherwise? Calling it genetics is borderline insane.
SW,
I suggest you read the third block of text I quoted from the BBC. I note the Andrea Ciani studies (linked to in the post) seem to be pretty tame relative to what else is out there based on my perusals of the literature. If you are right, there are a lot of insane researchers these days.
SW,
What? You think a survey of 12,000 college students around the world and genetic tests on 213 people are not meaningful?
Join the club.
I do like my neighbors, but many are here because they didn’t like their home countries.
Looks to me like the BBC is making a statement relative to issues related to the “leave” vote on Brexit.
I read the BBC article and reviewed it’s citations of studies (they’re only abstracts, btw), as well as looked up other papers by the same authjors (also only abstracts available).
Let me first comment on what Mr. Kimel omitted from the BBC article .. .which was in fact the point of the whole article as well as the major reason for the authors many studies of geographic differences in personality traits. Interesting that Mr. Kimel neglected to highlight the major point, huh?
“In other words, your views on other cultures may say more about yourself and your own society, than the patchwork of personalities that actually exists across the world.”
I’ll also note friom the BBC’s cited studies, as well as all the others that they are sell-reported personality traits of friends who know one another. In other words subjective observations & self interpretations.
The Geographic Distribution of Big Five Personality Traits , March 2007
“…a self-report measure designed to assess the high-order personality traits …”
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022022106297299
Personality profiles of cultures: aggregate personality traits., September 2005
“College students from 51 cultures rated an individual from their country whom they knew well (N=12,156).”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16248722
From the primary authors of the Sept 2005 report:
National character does not reflect mean personality trait levels in 49 cultures. October 2005
“…national character …of 49 cultures and compared them with the average personality scores of culture members assessed by observer ratings and self-reports. National character ratings were reliable but did not converge with assessed traits.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16210536
I’m wondering though what Mr. Kimels’ point was in citing the BBC article? It appears to follow his other series of posts on AB which are all about how cultural affinities differ — which isn’t new news to anybody — and why the U.S. should only accept immigrants with those cultural traits Mr. Kimel deems best.. as if “best” in his opinion are better than those cultures he doesn’t prefer.
As best I can tell, from the series of Mr. Kimeli’s posts he is xenophobe…. or white christian racist underneath all his posts about other cultures and how the U.S. should be more selective. I’m sure this line of thought resonates well with the other xenophobic white racists in the nation. Perhaps Mr. Kimel is just speaking for them, acting as their public voice in his oblique fashion.
I get it…. millions of people in all nations all the time desire to maintain what they think is “best” for them by excluding those they don’t like or want to mimic — reminds me of the southern states before and after the Civil war, and the Scopes trial, and the National Socialists in 1930’s Germany,
I’d be far more interested in personality trait studies across geographic U.S. than across global geographies. I wonder if the authors of the cited reports have done such studies and if not, why not?
Longtooth,
“or white christian racist”
I’ve noted before. I am not a Christian. And I would venture to say that white supremacists would not consider me to be white, though I guess it would depend on whether I was a defendant in a felony case (the term “White Hispanic” got a lot of traction in the press in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s death).
As to the rest of what you wrote… I’ve stated in the post I don’t think the personality traits mentioned in the BBC article are particularly relevant or important. After all, to a large extent they are not observable and depend on self-reporting. As I noted, I wish they had picked different studies to comment upon. But I can appreciate, nevertheless, that maybe things will change at the BBC.
Sorry Mike. Yu are white . . . and the supremacists would not know the difference
An old quote by Steven Pinker came to mind:
Kimel’s selective Pinker quote is from 6/26/2006). Six years later he wrote a response to the “group selectionist” theories, debunking it’s foundation and basis;
I only point this out because Mr. Kimel’s series espouse group selection as a basis for U.S immigration policies.
Steven Pinker (6/18/2012)
Pinker’s preface to “The False Allure of Group Selection”
“Group selection has become a scientific dust bunny, a hairy blob in which anything having to do with “groups” clings to anything having to do with “selection.” The problem with scientific dust bunnies is not just that they sow confusion; … the apparent plausibility of one restricted version of “group selection” often bleeds outwards to a motley collection of other, long-discredited versions. The problem is that it also obfuscates evolutionary theory by blurring genes, individuals, and groups as equivalent levels in a hierarchy of selectional units; … this is not how natural selection, analyzed as a mechanistic process, really works. Most importantly, it has placed blinkers on psychological understanding by seducing many people into simply equating morality and culture with group selection, oblivious to alternatives that are theoretically deeper and empirically more realistic.”
Let me emphasize Pinker’s main point:
“Most importantly, [group selection] has placed blinkers on psychological understanding by seducing many people into simply equating morality and culture with group selection….”
Kimel’s selective Pinker is taken completely out of context if you read the actual article from which it was selectively picked.
The 2nd to last paragraph in the complete article makes the point Pinier was addressing in his article from which Mr. Kimel’s Pinker quote is selected out of context.
“Group differences, when they exist, pertain to averages, not to individual men and women. There are geniuses and dullards, saints and sinners, in every race, ethnicity, and gender. Political equality is a commitment to universal human rights, and to policies that treat people as individuals rather than as representatives of groups; it is not an empirical claim that people are indistinguishable. Many commentators seem unwilling to grasp these points.”
“Sorry Mike. [You] are white . . . and the supremacists would not know the difference.”
Just not “pasty white,” like me! 😀
Mr. Kimel’s capitions selective quote from Pinker as
“An old quote by Steven Pinker came to mind:”
I was curious about the “old quote” part of this caption which Kimel uses to make it appear that the selective quote he used from Pinker is a well known one by those who read and are familiar with Pinker’s works… at least this is how most would interpret “old quote”… something well and oft quoted.
So I googled “Steven Pinker quotes” and the most often cited quotes don’t include the one Mr. Kimel selectively lifted.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker
Then I looked for a list of his quotes … and looked at the first 200 or so (approximate.. 20 per page on average) Pinker quotes listed.. .None were from the Kimel capitioned “old quote” Mr. Kimel selectively picked out of context.
http://www.azquotes.com/author/11687-Steven_Pinker
This gives me reason to suspect that Mr. Kimel’s source for the out of context selective “old [Pinker] quote” came from some publication by a group of xenophobic white christian racists, white supremacist types on some website or periodical or other means of promoting their values.
If my suspicion is not correct, then the question is just why did Mr. Kimel lift a never quoted or rarely quoted “old quote” by Pinker out of context form the New Republic article?
Let me a shot at a possible answer:
First and foremost Steven Pinker’s works and research are highly renowned and of the top order among researchers. He is among the most credible of psychological theorists. Steven Pinker is a:
“cognitive scientist, psychologist, linguist, and popular science author. He is Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and is known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.”
Mr. Kimel therefore looks for credible (unassailable) sources to support his own belief system.
Next, he selects one or two paragraphs, out of context of the whole (in this case an article in the New Republic), to make Mr. Kimel’s personal belief system sound like they are the same as those of the credible unassailable highly regarded scientific thought.
This is how propagandist’s work… associate a scientific credible source with one’s own incredible beliefs to give credibility to those beliefs. This is precisely how the National Socialists vilified the Jews in Europe, or for that matter how every single Jew hater on the globe justified their beliefs. This is how the white supremacists justify their denigration of blacks in the U.S. .. they find some paper purported to be from a scientist or credible university and lift a quote or interpret from them to support their racist belief system. This is how the anti-immigration xenophobes justify their racist or selective immigration policies or desires.
Mr. Kimel is no different… using age old methods to promote and justify his xenophobic fears of immigrants “diluting” or “changing” the U.S.’s perfect culture in a direction that will make us less perfect… less advantaged, less superior. He wants to “make America great again”.. back to when it was a white supreme culture composed of Northern Europeans with their strong religious identity steeped in variants and offshoots of Calvinism, and aristocratic rule… the good ol’ days of our revered and hallowed “founding fathers” idealisms.
That’s my take..
Run,
I have a recollection of writing about a neighbor I had in some posts from a long time ago. This neighbor was a member of the Upright Ostriches,
which he described as the non-violent wing of the Posse Comitatus.
(The motto was something like “If your head is in the sand, your ass is in the air.” )
Anyway, he gave us the third degree when we moved in, which was what he did with everyone in the neighborhood. The questions seemed oddly detailed about background, etc., but he just seemed curious so OK. So we answered, and he reached his conclusion. As he told me once, “It’s a pity you aren’t white.” From which I conclude that to folks like that, I am not white.
Surprisingly, he was always civil to us and everyone else. He was an auto mechanic by trade, and he customers of all races. In fact, I used him to fix my car. So I once asked him why he kept plying me with literature – his comment was there was no particular reason why we couldn’t all agree that separation of the races was good for all. In other words – I and everyone else undesirable could be persuaded to move far away from him.
I also asked him why, if he wanted (at a minimum) to be separated geographically, etc., from those he didn’t consider whites, and he considered them (us) inferior, why was he so civil? Why didn’t he act on his hatred? I recall that he particularly disliked Black people, among the various ethnicities. He quoted back to me: “black money is green.”
Longtooth,
I have read just enough of the literature to know that “group selection” has a particular meaning in the genetic literature. Reread the Pinker article you cited. Group selection is the idea that there are adaptations in individual organisms which benefit the group at the expense of the individual. It cropped up as an explanation for activities/traits that can cause an individual not to enjoy any additional reproductive fitness but which will benefit the individual’s group. For example, it was used as an explanation for altruism and patriotism, and I believe it has even been suggested as an explanation for homosexuality.
To quote from that article:
From what I can see (and I am just a casual observer of the field, so on this sentence I may be way wrong because I am making a value judgement based on an incomplete knowledge of the field) most of the heavy hitters do not agree with the idea of group selection today.
I forgot to add…. my understanding is that one reason why group selection as a concept was popular early on has to do with the fact that there are social organisms (e.g., ants, naked mole rats) where most of the individuals are not-reproductive.